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The Jade War

By Swe Win October 17, 2012 7:58 amOctober 17, 2012 7:58 am

MYITKYINA, Myanmar — This is the road to the treasure — the pot-holed road that leads to Hpakant, a town in northern Myanmar famous for producing the best quality jade in the world. But if just three months ago it was lined with cars loaded with jade hunters, today it is mostly empty.

Hpakant, which brings millions of dollars in jade sales to the government annually, has in recent months become the focal point of renewed armed clashes between government forces and ethnic Kachin rebels. Last year, a 17-year truce between the two sides collapsed because the government tried to pressure the armed ethnic groups into becoming border guards under command of the national army.

Many residents of Kachin State support the rebels’ continued war against government forces even though they bear the brunt of it

The rebels refused and since then have been trying to regain control of many areas of Kachin State over which they say the army encroached during the truce. Opposing current political reforms, they are asking instead for greater autonomy for the resource-rich region and calling for a nationwide conference to reshape the current political structure in favor of ethnic minorities.

President Thein Sein and other members of the new civilian government seem willing to make peace with the northern rebels, but not at the cost of deviating from the army-drafted Constitution, which makes no provision for any form of federalism. Thus, by revealing just how little a role Naypyidaw is ready to give ethnic minorities even in its new, more democratic order, the renewed conflict in Kachin is exposing the government’s soft underbelly.

During the long truce, Hpakant came to be dominated by mining companies directly or indirectly related to powerful army generals, their cronies and Chinese businessmen. On a visit to Hpakant early this month, residents told me that firms like Htoo Trading Company, Asia World Company and Chang Long Gems and Jewellery Company had brought bulldozers as large as houses. Locals who had previously dug the earth with just a spade lost their right to do so and were forced to become salaried laborers for the companies.

Photo

A worker washed a slab of jade before the government gem auction in Myanmar in 2007. Jade from Hpakant, which makes millions of dollars at sale, has become a focal point of renewed armed clashes between government forces and Kachin rebels.Credit

Over the years, hundreds of tons of jade were brought to the generals in Yangon (and later, when the capital moved, Naypyidaw) or illegally exported to China’s black market. Still, the road from Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin State, to Hpakant was never well maintained and the jade town was left to decay under land erosion and flooding.

Yup Zau Hkawng, once a war refugee and a small-time jade prospector, is now the richest Kachin businessman in the region. He became wealthy in his own right by digging for jade by hand and trading it while building good ties with both the generals and the Kachin rebel leaders. Himself an ethnic Kachin, he said he shared some of his fortune with the locals by paying for the paving of roads and providing other public services.

Hkawng told me recently that locals were understandably upset at being cheated of their land’s natural resources by outsiders. Only a proper resource-sharing scheme can end the war in the region, he said.

Many residents of Kachin State support the rebels’ continued war against government forces even though they bear the brunt of it: The conflict has created an estimated 100,000 refugees. And they are confident they can oust the mining companies for good after their successful campaign last year to stop the construction of a Chinese-backed billion-dollar hydropower dam in Kachin State that was designed to generate electricity largely for export to China.

Two months ago, the rebels managed to gain control over nearly 100 major jade mines in Hpakant and restored to locals their indigenous right to dig for jade themselves. This has enraged managers at the extraction firms, who are now allegedly pushing the army to crack down on the rebels.

Swe Win

Now the rebels are trying to increase their leverage by reclaiming more territory. This, of course, is unacceptable to the army: local resistance threatens not only its business interests but also the political image of the new civilian government, which remains dominated by former generals.

So the conflict continues. And its main victims, the people of Kachin, are willing to bear the consequences because to them even the new government of Myanmar is still merely a marauder.